be in opposition;" and all except Levin understood the meaning of his words.
"Well, how is Kostia?" he said, turning to Levin and taking him by the arm. "So you came, it seems, in style."
Levin would not have been sorry to be in style, but he could not comprehend what was taking place, and, going a few steps from the rest, he expressed to him his astonishment at seeing the hostile districts asking the old marshal to stand as candidate.
"O sancta simplicitas!" replied Oblonsky; and in a few clear words he explained to Levin what the state of the case was.
"If, as at the last elections, all the districts should unite on the government marshal, he would be elected. This is not what is wanted. Now eight of the districts have agreed to ask him to stand. But if two should refuse to accept him for their candidate, then Snetkof might decline to stand. And then the old party might take for their candidate some one else in their party, so that the whole scheme would be defeated. But if Sviazhsky's district is the only one refusing to adopt him as their candidate, Snetkof will accept the nomination. So he is selected and proposed as a candidate so as to throw dust in the eyes of the opposite party, and when we set up our candidate they will go over to him."
Levin began to get some idea of the plan, but it was not entirely clear to him, and he was about to ask a few more questions, when suddenly there was heard in the next room a great shouting and uproar and confusion:—
"What is it? What? Who? .... Confidence in whom? What? .... It is disproved. .... Lack of confidence. .... They won't admit Flerof .... prosecution. .... They refuse to admit a man? Shame! .... The law." Such were the words that Levin heard shouted from all sides, and he, together with all the rest, hurrying from all directions and shouting at the tops of their voices, rushed into the great hall, and, pressing along with all the nobles, he made his way up to the governor's table, about which the government marshal, Sviazhsky, and other leaders were hotly discussing.
